Trump

Before we get to it let me take you on a little investor intrigue. I got an email today entitled “$109 Trillion Dollar Opportunity.”I’ve learned (and this may surprise you) that such claims usually aren’t all they are cracked up to be. There’s a site called “stockgumshoe” that ferrets out such claims. Usually, the person making such a bold prediction wants you to buy their newsletter. Stock gumshoe tries to figure out, based on clues in their pitch, what the stock or idea they are pitching. They then go on to tell you when it was last pitched, and what they think of the idea. Being a paying member of stock gumshoe (I believe in supporting those who help me) I went there and looked up “$109 Trillion …” and didn’t get what I desired, I tried the guy’s name, “Tim Plaehn.” Oh Boy. A bunch of articles come up. Apparently old Tim runs a bunch of newsletters that tell you about stocks paying dividends. So I guess it you add up the value of all the companies or add up all their dividends they’ll be paying for the next century you can come up with $109 trillion. But what got me was the first comment by another subscriber, “Tim Plaehn is clueless when it comes to selecting dividend stocks! Stay away his picks are worthless….”

What else do you need to know?

It reminds me of my dad’s favorite one panel cartoon. Outside a movie theater is a sandwich board proclaiming the merits of the current movie. “Outstanding!” The Times. “One of the year’s best!” The Tribune. etc.

Scrawled in lipstick on the bottom of the board “It Stinks!” Tommy Smith.

And in the snow are the footprints leading to a young boy looking over his shoulder as he’s walking away.

Yup. Maybe, I’m being unfair to old Tim. Maybe, the comment was a plant by a competitor. Who knows? But it was enough to stop me, make me laugh, and think about that cartoon and my dad.

In the news is Deutsche Bank. I don’t know why this is news again, I guess it’s because they have someone who was on the inside who is going to talk to Congress. (I think it’s Congress. I forget.) DB has been involved in money laundering for Russian oligarchs, gotten caught and paid big fines. The news today is that DB lent money to Trump even when they knew he had lied about how much he was worth. Michael Cohen provided documents to Congress showing what Cohen claims were inflated values of Trump’s properties in order to convince DB to lend him money so he could buy The Buffalo Bills. He also did it on other deals. So what? Well, apparently lying to a bank is fraud. Who knew? It gets comical. Trump sued the bank for lending him money. Then turned around and asked another part of the bank for money and they gave it to him! The explanation floating around is the left hand didn’t know what the right was doing.

Either Deutsche Bank is inept, corrupt, or both. Corrupt in the sense that if they loaned money to Trump knowing he lied was it because it wasn’t really their money? Were they just acting as a conduit for Putin and the Russian oligarchs? Or were they blinded by Trump’s notoriety? That is even though he lied they figured the publicity was good for them? God knows.

Hopefully we will learn more in the coming weeks.

594 Days to the 2020 election and 672 Days to Inauguration DayLamnai, Belize

Fox News – yes, disturbing, but even more disturbing is 19% of people in this country get their news from Fox, which I wouldn’t mind if they were in the business of news, but they are not.

Fox leads the pack by a lot. NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN are all down in single digits, mid-range single digits. More disturbing than that is none of the Dems, except Eric Swalwell, go on Fox regularly. I’d like to see Omar and AOC go on there. I wonder if Tucker Carlson or Jeanine Pirro’s head would explode? You know when faced with facts and the women they’ve been lambasting and making insulting remarks about. It’s one thing to do it behind someone’s back; it’s another to do it to their face. As Trevor Noah said recently after going to an NBA game. He said he was used to yelling at the TV. He only did that once during the game and the ref turned to look at him with a “What did you say?” look. Yeah. It’s different.

In other disturbing tidbits there was the mass shooting in New Zealand. Terrible. Amazingly, right after that shooting their PM got on the airwaves and said that their gun laws were going to change. What? One mass shooting and they conclude that the gun laws have to change? Also, in Newtown the parents are suing Remington and the trial is set to go forward. Even though W signed a bill saying you can’t sue gun manufacturers just because their product kills people. What’s next? Hold the Sanger family responsible for their creating the opioid crisis in this country? Or the big pharma company that helped distribute the drugs?

Listen, if you believe in capitalism you gotta let a person make a buck. That’s tantamount, and – dare I say it? Trumps (get it? “Trumps”? Ha ha ha, I’m a riot.) everything else. I mean if you let government interfere that would be socialism wouldn’t it? and that’s bad. Right? Am I right? No one should have the right to tell me I can’t take pills, carry a gun and shoot people. That would be interfering with my right fuck people up.

And speaking with interfering with people’s rights, how about that guy, who is a government official, who is forcing children who have been raped to have their rapist’s babies? Who elected him god? God’s will? No, his will.

Hopefully, Australia will ban eggs. That after a kid, now known as “Egg Boy”, smacked one on the head of some idiot right wing Aussie politician trying to side with the shooter in New Zealand. He joins the hallowed halls of video fame along with “Wouldn’t You Like to Know Weather Boy,” and “I like turtles.” (cut and paste those lines in google and watch the vids.)

Hey, a big shout out to Donald Trump for promoting world wide white nationalist terrorism. Good job Donald. Yes, the shooter in NZ credited the Donald. Naturally, Donald being the shy retiring guy he is didn’t take credit. In a ploy of reverse psychology he said it was “terrible” and “very sad.” The shooter said he had acted to stop the “invaders” from coming into his country. Right after Donald made his remarks about the shooter he picked up a pen and signed a document which he said would help stop “invaders” from coming to our country. Hey, I see a similarity in the words that Donald used and the NZ shooter used, and what the right wing politicians in Europe use and the neo-Nazis use, and the right wing talk show hosts, like Tucker Carlson use.

I wonder, “Is there a connection?” Well shucks I dunno, according to David Brock who wrote this when Kavanaugh was getting confirmed:

Call it Kavanaugh’s cabal: There was his colleague on the Starr investigation, Alex Azar, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Mark Paoletta is now chief counsel to Vice President Mike Pence; House anti-Clinton gumshoe Barbara Comstock is now a Republican member of Congress. Future Fox News personalities Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson were there with Ann Coulter, now a best-selling author, and internet provocateur Matt Drudge.

So gee, all these right wing types know each other, have known each other for decades, and partied together. How does Brock, the founder of Media Matters know this? They partied at his DC row house.

David Duke and the head of the big Nazi website call Carlson their guy. Carlson has been saying racist stuff for decades. In fact, it got him kicked off two channels so far.

I’m not sure but I think Fox has had to apologize for his comments. I know they apologized for Pirro’s comments about Omar. Somehow, linking Omar to terrorists because she wears a hijab was a bridge too far for Fox.

The there is the uproar over Omar, and after hearing what she said I’m surprised that anyone took any action for this woman as a Congressional representative doing her job. Oh? What? She thought speaking her mind – like Carlson and Pirro do regularly – was part of her job as a Congressional representative? That actually bringing up issues that need to be discussed and voters should be aware of was important? I mean what would a refugee from Ethiopia know about the problems in the Middle East? Maybe give us a fresh perspective, or remind us of an old one that we had forgotten? Naw. Jeanine and Tucker know best. 19% of the country listens to their blatant racist, misogynistic, religious bigotry every day and we’ve got one guy who is going over to say, “hold on a second.”

What’s wrong with that picture?

So in really really important news Sofia Vergara’s husband told the story of how he knew “she was the one.”

If you don’t know who Sofia Vergara is – nevermind.

Joe Manganiello, Sofia’s husband, had been on the cover of People magazine as the world’s most eligible bachelor. (I guess he’s good looking, rich, and famous. I don’t know. Never heard of him.) He’s on his second date with SV. He knows she just got out of a long term relationship. He brings her the mag and says, Hey, I know you just got out of a long term relationship so if you don’t want to get too serious right away, I understand but I thought you might want to see this.

He hands her the magazine. She sees he’s on the cover – most eligible bachelor – she flips past his article. He asks what are you doing? You skipped over my article.

She replied, “I wanted to see who else was on the list.”

Meanwhile, I have to go to my niece’s wedding in New Orleans this Saturday and there’s a problem. I don’t get to say this often. (Well, I might say it often but never truthfully – until NOW!)

My jet is in the shop.

Yup. It’s true. All set to go and South West texted to say our flight was cancelled. Some quick noodling around revealed they fly the grounded jet. We were able to rebook. Now it only take nine and a half hours to fly back from NOLA to DC (via Texas and Colorado.) If you want to run out to the airport and wave let me know.

595 Days to the 2020 election and 673 Days to Inauguration Day

PS After a sess rock climbing I take the nephew to Hooters for green beer and wings on St. Patty’s day. No green beer! The manager forgot to buy the food coloring. What is this world coming to?

Rachel had a segment last night that was really really creepy. There’s this guy appointed by Trump to oversee kids in detention centers that came here to seek legal immigration status. He’s a big Roman Catholic Church guy and is a member of The Knights of Columbus. As far as I knew they raised money for fireworks on the Fourth of July, but they also do other things. This guy has published articles saying abortion should not be allowed and that contraception is the same thing as abortion and should not be allowed.

He heads up an agency where there are girls in his care. Some of these girls are pregnant. Last year a girl who was pregnant wanted an abortion. He did everything he could to stop her from getting an abortion, including not letting her go to see a doctor. He was taken to court. He lost. It was made a class action suit and he was no longer allowed to obstruct a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. This was in March of 2018. It turns out he had been keeping a spreadsheet of all the pregnant girls in his care.

This is where it gets creepy. He had each girl identified by number, when they reported their pregnancy, how they got pregnant, whether they wanted an abortion, when their last menstrual cycle was, and how far along their pregnancy was. The express purpose of this report was to try and prevent these young women from getting an abortion, to delay the procedure until their pregnancy was too far along.

He was prevented from stopping these women from getting abortions in March of 2018, but he is still keeping the report going. There is no reason for the report other than to try and prevent women from getting the attention they seek. This week under a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) a group got hold of the report. It’s 28 pages long! I don’t know how many entries there are on a page but let’s say it’s 20. That’s 560 women! If 30 per page it’s 840 and at 40 per page it’s 1120. Yikes.

Besides being creepy, unconstitutional, and weird I got to wonder if it’s criminal. I would think denying someone their Constitutional rights is some sort of legal violation. Yet, there it is. This guy is still in the job.

So, not only does the Roman Catholic Church have to worry about male priests as pedophiles attacking young boys; it also has to deal with one of their big male civilian institutions promoting some weird part of its doctrine in illegal ways.

For a brief history lesson, The Catholic Church had a number of odd ducks that got pushed to the edges of their control. That place was Ireland. The RC priests from Ireland were the ones that really got the Roman Catholic Church going in America. So we are blessed/cursed with a rather puritanical extreme version of Roman Catholicism, which was also reinforced by the Puritans who escaped Europe to get away from religious suppression so they could form their own version of it.

It was in reaction to the Puritans that Roger Williams escaped the Massachusetts Bay Colony, went to England and convinced Parliament to let him set up a new colony based on the odd idea of religious and political freedom and to let him try this really unusyal idea called democracy. Thus Rhode Island was founded in 1636.

I’m sorry, but have you ever met anyone who believed in god that didn’t think their god was THE GOD? The best I’ve ever seen is a kind of laissez-faire attitude toward it.

Lisa Randall, well known physicist and author, as a child was curious and when she was told heaven was in the sky and god was in the clouds wanted to know which cloud god was in. It’s a rather practical question. Naturally, the adults laughed and pooh-poohed her. But it’s a valid question. The fact that those who believe can’t answer it points out the problem with religion in general. In “A History of God” Karen Armstrong writes about the changing role god is cast in. Each time there is something that is a problem factually or logically then there is an explanation, which ends up that god shrinks from that part of what was claimed before. As the notion of god continues, one could say that it is the notion of the reasoning for that which we can’t explain.

It seems humans want to understand. When the knowledge required is not available then they say god of the gods did it, or are responsible, etc.

I contend that whatever embodiment of god a culture has is due to parents and grand-parents saying anything they can to get the kid to stop asking, “Why?”

There’s an interesting new Great Courses out entitled, “How Jesus Became God.” Interesting. I mean. When he started out he wasn’t god. That came later. I guess at Nicene, but maybe before. He had a good PR man in St. Paul. If it weren’t for Paul, none of this would have happened. There were a lot of bare foot guys wandering around the Levant 2,000 years ago yelling about the Romans and claiming they had good news. But it took the right combination to start a new religion.

That’s not what I meant to talk about. Sorry.

Rick Gates! Remember him. Paul Manafort’s second in command? Part of the Trump Inauguration Committee? Yeah, baby. He was due to be sentenced yesterday, and for the fifth time Mueller’s team asked for a continuance because Rick was still cooperating with on-going investigations. Some thought once Manafort was sentenced that Gates’ work would be done. Apparently not. Ongoing investigations? Really? Which ones?

Are we talking about the investigations into the Inaugural Committee? If so is it the one in New York, DC, New Jersey, or the Federal one out of the Southern District of New York? So many investigations to pick from.

Let’s make a list:

Trump Organization taxes,

Trump University scam,

Trump Foundation – criminal fraud,

Manafort, Gates criminal activities,

Cohen criminal activities,

Russian social media criminal activities,

Flynn criminal activities,

Russian hacking,

Collusion with Wikileaks,

Campaign finance criminal activities,

Inauguration criminal activities,

Trump nepotism and emoluments violations,

Obstruction of Justice.

Now who might be investigating:

Robert Mueller – Special Counsel,

Southern District of New York – Federal Prosecutors,

Eastern District of Virginia – Federal Prosecutors,

Florida Souther District Federal Court,

New York States Attorney,

Manhattan District Attorney,

Then there’s the House Committees:

Oversight,

Intelligence,

Judiciary,

Financial Services,

Foreign Affairs,

Ways and Means,

But other than that I can’t think of anyone or anything, but I may have missed a few.

Don’t you miss the days of Obama’s tan suit, or Hillary having a picture taken?

597 Days to the 2020 election and 675 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Four Days til Kukulcan shows his tail on the Castillo at Chichen Itza on the Vernal Equinox. (March 20, 2019.)

We are caught in a really bad nightmare. I keep hoping to wake up and find it is not true. It’s been coming for a long time. What worries me the most is the constant chipping away, little piece by little piece at our democracy and our institutions. All these people taking their little bites for themselves, like a school of piranha.

Let’s look at yesterday’s news:

– A Republican congressman released the full transcripts ofthe testimony of Lisa Paige and of Peter Strzok, the two FBI agents that were having an affair and exchanged some text messages that were not complimentary to Donald Trump. This had Republicans and the their right wing buddies jumping up and down about how the FBI was against Trump, in the bag for Hillary, not professional, etc. etc. etc.

Now we get to read the full transcripts. Whoops. It shows just the opposite. Huh? Who knew? Obviously, not this Congressman. In fact, it shows just the opposite. If an FBI agent had wanted to damage Trump they would have leaked the information that his campaign was under investigation, but they didn’t because they are professionals.

According to the testimony there was credible evidence that Russians were working with people in the Trump campaign to get him elected, and – according to the testimony – anytime Russians are doing anything in the U.S. it is taken seriously. They, the FBI would have investigated regardless of whether Trump had won or not.

So there you have it. Republican Congressman says he’s releasing entire testimony to show the FBI for what it is. What he thinks it is and the truth are at polar opposites.

– A mass shooting in New Zealand, inspired by right wing nuts in this country.

– Remington, maker of Bushmaster, the AR-15 used to mow down the children in Sandy Hook Elementary in 243 seconds is being sued. Remember under W and the Republicans in Congress they passed legislation saying gun manufacturers could not be sued for selling weapons. Now, they are being sued for marketing weapons in a manner that suggests their product would be great for criminal activity. The lawyer for the plaintiff asked the question, “Would we hesitate to condemn Ford if it marketed a car saying it would be great for running into a crowd?”

Together they teamed up to make fools of themselves not once in a committee hearing but twice!

Way to go boys!

I don’t know who went first, but it really doesn’t matter. Wilbur Ross reminds me of Mr. Dithers from the Simpsons, except he doesn’t seem to be in as good health as Dithers. Let’s remember that Ross was involved with the Bank of Cyprus when it was laundering money for Russian oligarchs. At that time he was on the board of the bank. He resigned to become Secretary of Commerce. There were some issues he had with stocks that he had to get rid of, which he did by signing them over to family members.

Now on to the Census thingee. The right wing wants a citizenship question on the U.S. Census. Seems okay right? They also want to count only citizens. Seems okay too, right? Kind of anodyne, right? I mean, “what’s the big deal?”

Like many of these things they seem harmless until you hear the facts.

– One, it’s unconstitutional. The U.S. Constitution makes clear everyone is to be counted. Why? Well, for one thing we broke away from Britain and formed our own country specifically around this question. The Boston Tea Party was because of this very problem, and Patrick Henry said, “No taxation without representation,” and he also said, “Don’t tread on me.” Now, I kinda think those are right wing talking points suitable for tee-shirts and license plates, so it’s kind of odd that now they want to go against that pattern of Revolutionary patriotism and zeal, but that’s what Ross wants to do. Why? Well, they know if you put a “Are you a U.S. citizen?” on the 2020 Census a lot of people will either lie or hide and not be counted, which is exactly what they want. The Census is used for apportionment of Congressional seats and funding. If they can keep those shithole Democratic states, like California and New York, from under reporting the people they have then the welfare Republican states like Wyoming and North Dakota get more money and power.

Let’s also not forget the Ross has already lied to Congress about this issue. He said he was asked by AG Jeff Sessions for this data for law enforcement purposes, which is true. But but but, Sessions asked because Ross asked him to do so, which he lied about to Congress. The Census people went back to Justice and said they could give them better data for law enforcement purposes and cheaper than putting it in the Census. Better? Cheaper? What’s not to like? Sessions told them, his own Justice people, not to take the meeting. Why would he not want them to take the meeting? BECAUSE HE HAD NO INTEREST IN THE DATA!

Okay with that as background let’s look at the latest round of back and forth with W-I-L-BURRR and the Congressional Oversight Committee (now that it is in the hands of Democrats, who want to really perform oversight):

Paul Gosar compares Ross to Jefferson. U.S. Virgin Island representative, Stacey Plaskett takes exception to the characterization reminding folks that Jefferson was a slave owner and approved the idea that slaves were 3/5ths of a man.

*Okay, it’s not unbiased. It calls Ross a doddering old man. What’s wrong with that? He is.

Then Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asksW-I-L-BURRR a question. You think he’s doddering? The old fool says he doesn’t feel a need to answer the question. (Because AOC is out of time.) Chairman Cummings tells him he can answer the question. He says he doesn’t feel the need. Cummings tells him he, Cummings is asking. Now he feels the need. He says he doesn’t know or wait he says he’s complied with the law. AOC says that under the law Census has to provide three reports and they’ve only provided the first two. The third one is the one Congress acts on and that hasn’t been provided putting him, the Secretary of Commerce and the Department of Commerce in violation of the law, and AOC’s question is why hasn’t that been provided?

Ross goes into his fumbling forgetful old man routine and throws in a lie. “We’ve complied with the law.”

This is too much for Mark Meadows, a stickler for procedure when the committee was interviewing Michael Cohen, but now? Not so much. He doesn’t know what law is. He thinks this is way out of line yadda yadda yadda. But he must love Ms Cortez quoting chapter and verse the law’s chapter and verse and offering to provide the Congressman with a copy of the law. Cummings got Ross to say he’d give the committee in writing that they, Commerce, had complied with the law. Wow, they are willing to put his lie in writing. Especially, funny is that Cummings said after AOC made her comments that the third report hadn’t been provided that Ross had a bunch of lawyer types scurrying to try and confirm what she was saying;

It’s a word I kind of know the meaning of, enough to be able to figure out that it’s not a good thing to do when I read a sentence where it is used. But I wouldn’t be able to use it in a sentence myself, until yesterday when I learned the definition.

The judge used the phrase “dissembling in this courtroom” in reference to Paul Manafort the other day in the Washington DC courtroom before sentencing him.

He appeared to act sheepishly before her. He said he was sorry. He said he was changing. He said his wife needed him and that he’d be seventy years old in a few weeks.

Aw. So sad.

What Paul Manafort and his legal team have been doing, and what Paul Manafort did for most of his life, is a reflection of our society for the rich and well connected.

What the judge said to him before sentencing is worth repeating and reflecting upon. The question to me is, “Is this how we want our society to conduct itself?” Is this what we have become? Is there no regard for truth, honesty, and social norms?

As I have studied history it has been abundantly clear that there are two levels of society, any society: the rich and powerful, and everybody else. Those in power will use whatever they have at their disposal to stay in power. They will lie. They will use religion. They will use the press, the army, the courts, whatever they are able to so do to be able to manipulate situations to stay in power.

The Roman Catholic church is full of sexual predators, but this is nothing new. It goes back centuries. There was a nun who used to have orgies. In Paraguay there are medicine men who are really scam artists who take what little people have and perform useless healing rituals. What do they do when they are sick? They go to the big city and see a doctor. The rich getting out of military service is another one. Remember in the Civil War you could buy your way out of service? Same thing throughout the ages.

It’s fascinating to me that on the day Manafort got sentenced a second time that a story broke about a bribery scandal that the rich were paying to get their kids into some top notch schools.

The other day I wrote about how a right wing (I mean “conservative” media outlet) The Hill attacked AOC and had glaring headlines denigrating* her, yet, when you actually listened to and watched the video none of what they claimed was in their evidence. The same thing happened in the lawyer’s comments after the Manafort hearing. In fact, it happened twice! At both trials. The judges in both cases went out of their way to say that their cases had nothing to do with Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential campaign. Yet, this did not stop the lawyer each time saying after sentence was imposed that the judge affirmed there was no collusion. This was a lie, both times. Yet, they persisted in saying this lie, and they said it over and over again during the two trials.

* another $5 word.

Let’s review a few of the things the judge in the DC case did say:

She mentioned his “disregard for the facts”,

his “dissembling in this courtroom”,

“his belief that he had the right to manipulate these proceedings, and the Court orders and the rules didn’t apply to him”,

“a significant portion of his career has been spent gaming the system.”

That is what she said about Manafort’s character and behavior, as to his legal defense:

The judge said that Russian collusion had no bearing on this case and the repeated mentioning of it must have been intended for another audience. She said the no collusion refrain was repeated and unrelenting. As to the defense’s written plea in reference to that she said, “It’s hard to understand why and attorney would write that… with no citation.”

She went on to say the no-collusion mantra is simply a non-sequitur that doesn’t bear on the question before the Court. The question of collusion may or may not be applicable, but seeing as how the investigation is unfinished and no report has been issued it can not be determined.

She went on to say, “It is also not particularly persuasive to argue that an investigation hasn’t found anything when you lied to the investigators.”

She went on to say, “The question of whether there was or was not any coordination or conspiracy or collusion between anyone associated with the presidential campaign and anyone in Russia was not presented in this case. PERIOD. Therefore, it was not resolved one way or the other by the case.”

Just in case you missed the point here:

THE MANAFORT CASE WAS NOT ABOUT COLLUSION.

THE MANAFORT CASE WAS NOT ABOUT COLLUSION.

THE MANAFORT CASE WAS NOT ABOUT COLLUSION.

And in his earlier case in Virginia:

THE MANAFORT CASE WAS NOT ABOUT COLLUSION.

THE MANAFORT CASE WAS NOT ABOUT COLLUSION.

THE MANAFORT CASE WAS NOT ABOUT COLLUSION.

In the Virginia case the judge said the case about collusion was not considered because that was “not before the Court for anything to do with collusion with the Russian government to influence this election.”

In both cases the prosecution went out of their way to make it clear that Paul Manafort did not cooperate with the investigators. The DC judge said he deliberately lied about his connection to Konstantin Kilimnik who has been linked to Russian intelligence.

He also lied about giving detailed polling information about the Trump campaign to a Russian, which wasn’t revealed until prosecutors revealed it in court filings.

When the attorney for Manafort left the court he stated that the judge found no collusion. This brought catcalls from those assembled who yelled, “That’s not what she said.” (and she didn’t)

The cat caller then yelled, “You aren’t lawyers. You’re liars.”

This same lawyer told the same lie after the Virginia trial.

In fact, that was the only statement the lying lawyer said to those assembled both times.

Oh well, New York is after Paul now. Sixteen counts. Hey, eight of them are the same crimes that Michael Cohen is going to jail for. That’s the case where there’s an unindicted co-conspirator, one Donald J. Trump, president of the Untied States. Hum. lemme think If Mikey is going to jail for this crime and Paulie is up on charges for the same crime, which he has already plead guilty to in Federal court and Donnie is also listed as a co-conspirator than what does this mean for Donnie? I think it means he could be in trouble.